Ordinary Joe

As soon as I could, I made my own excuses and put as much distance between myself and Bennett as was physically possible without actually leaving the party. I found myself walking past the VIP area, roped off to provide a sanctuary inside which the top talent could enjoy their evening unmolested by the rest of the guests.

‘Hey, Joey,’ I heard someone call from inside the rope, ‘over here.’ Turning, I saw Buddy Guttenberg beckoning to me to join him at his table. With the casual flick of one eyebrow, he alerted the bouncers to let me through, and with the other he indicated an empty chair next to him and invited me to sit down. I didn’t realise until I pulled back the chair that sitting with Buddy were Arch Wingate, his partner, the multi-Oscar-winning actress Melinda Curtis, and the two people I had recently watched feigning fornication: Jack Reynolds and, peering shyly out of the shadows, the impeccable Olivia Finch.

‘Arch, you remember Joey West,’ Buddy said, brooking no argument as to whether or not that bold statement was correct. ‘I brought him over to Queens last year to watch you burning my money on all those unnecessary fucking pick-up shots. Joey, you remember Arch, of course, and this is Melinda Curtis who I don’t believe you’ve met.’ Judging by his expression, Arch Wingate was pretty sure he’d never clapped eyes on me before either. He managed a disinterested half-smile while his wife raised a limp hand in unconscious impersonation of a royal wave, then returned to haranguing a waiter who had put a little too little ice in her mineral water. She looked thoroughly miserable. It was bad enough having to turn up to these events to support her own movies – sheer hell for a film she wasn’t even in. Undaunted by their lukewarm reaction, Buddy clapped one of his enormous paws on my shoulder and continued: ‘And I’m sure you remember our wonderful stars Jack and Olivia. Guys, this is Joe, my pal from London.’ Jack Reynolds looked right through me with dead eyes as if my very existence was an affront to his celebrity. Olivia, though, looked up and smiled in my direction.

‘Hi, Joe,’ she said before returning to inspecting her nails, an operation which seemed to require all her attention.

I blushed and told the table I was pleased to meet it. Buddy laughed at my shyness but did his best to make me feel part of the group, keeping my glass filled and pitching me time and again as the man who had got the film made – repeated references which did not go down well with the auteur Arch Wingate. ‘Hey, Joe,’ Buddy said, when the conversation lulled, ‘why don’t you tell the guys about that Irish tax deal you did? I love this story. I tell you, this guy is a fucking genius!’

‘It really wasn’t that complicated,’ I began modestly. ‘All I did was tap into a bit of the tax write-off money that’s sloshing around over there, leveraged it up by linking it into a corporation tax offset, and then underpinned it against their enhanced capital allowances to maximise the cash flow impact and net bottom line benefit …’

Jack Reynolds couldn’t contain himself. ‘Jesus Christ, Buddy, where did you find this guy? Fuck’s sake, if I wanted to be bored shitless, I’d have stayed home and watched one of Olivia’s old movies on cable.’

I felt myself reddening to the very tips of my ears. To my even greater embarrassment, while Buddy laughed heartily at my discomfort, Olivia Finch sprang to my rescue. ‘Leave him alone, Jack,’ she insisted, before fixing me with her angelic gaze. ‘You must be so clever to do all that stuff. I am just so dumb with numbers. I bet I’m getting ripped off from here to Christmas with all my money stuff.’

‘Not just numbers, sweetheart,’ Reynolds mumbled, grabbing a half-empty bottle of champagne and struggling to his feet. ‘Not just fucking numbers.’

‘Oh, go screw yourself,’ Olivia shouted after him as he lurched off towards the dance floor. ‘Asshole!’ She turned to me, the anger instantly drained from her face, one expression replaced by another like the swapping of masks. ‘Hey, Mr Money Man, why don’t you shift over here so we can talk properly. I bet it’s real exciting dealing with all that high finance, isn’t it?’

I did as I was told, then sat there dumbly, wondering whether my next comment should be about European tax harmonisation or her film.

‘I loved the movie, Ms Finch,’ I told her, an exaggeration that teetered close to being a lie, ‘and,’ steering closer to the truth, ‘you were sensational.’

‘Oh, do you really think so?’ she said, playing down her acting talents which were almost on a par with her beauty. ‘Thank you so much. And please, call me Olivia.’

The waiter returned with another bottle of champagne and refilled the glasses of everyone at the table. ‘So, tell me,’ Olivia continued after taking a small, delicate sip from her glass, ‘what did you really think of the movie? It kinda sucks, doesn’t it? Go on, you can be honest with me, English.’

‘No, I wouldn’t say that,’ I replied as evenly as I could. ‘OK, I’ll admit, it’s not the best film I’ve ever seen but it’s far from the worst.’

‘So what is the best film you’ve ever seen? You must have seen hundreds in your time.’

‘Oh, you know,’ I said, ‘I like a lot of the old classics. Stuff from before you were born. From before I was born, even.’

‘Like what?’ she persisted. ‘Go on, try me. I might not be quite as dumb as I look.’

‘No, I didn’t mean that,’ I replied, a little too quickly. ‘I’m just trying to think of something that you might have seen as well. They made some great films in the nineties, you know.’

Olivia shifted to a more upright, more rigid, position. ‘Just answer the goddamn question, English – what is your favourite movie?’ She spelled the words out slowly as if talking to a child. Or an idiot.

‘OK, then, if you must know, it’s Sullivan’s Travels. It’s an old—’

‘Preston Sturges movie!’ Olivia almost screamed, ‘Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake. Oh God, I love that film! It didn’t do as well at the box office as Paramount hoped but that might possibly have been because they released it right about the time of Pearl Harbor! I guess that’s what’s known in the business as bad timing! And I absolutely adore Veronica Lake. When I was a kid, I grew my hair real long and tried to get it to flick like hers, you know? Sturges made some great movies, didn’t he? The Great McGinty, The Lady Eve. But you hardly ever hear about him these days, do you? These kids today coming out of UCLA and NYU think cinema began with Quentin Tarantino. They don’t know anything about Sturges or Hawks or Frank Capra. And that’s just the Americans. Try talking to them about Fellini or Pasolini and they’ll think you’re trying to sell them a foreign car.’

‘Better not mention Ford, then,’ I said with a smile. Olivia looked at me blankly before she got the joke and laughed with far more gusto than my witticism deserved.

‘Yeah, you’re right there, Joe. John Ford would definitely be off their radar.’ Olivia paused for a moment and took another sip of her drink. A broad grin spread slowly across her face as if she’d just had a really naughty notion. ‘Do you know who my real all-time favourite actress is? The one I would have loved to have been? Go on, have a guess, Joe. You’ll never guess.’

I had no idea. A few minutes earlier I’d have gone for a banker like Marilyn Monroe or perhaps Elizabeth Taylor, but Olivia’s knowledge and enthusiasm had floored me. ‘Tell me. Who?’

‘Hedy Lamarr!’ Olivia announced, then looked at me, her eyes alive with anticipation, eager to gauge my reaction as if she had just revealed the ultimate secret to the meaning of life. ‘She had it all. She was beautiful. She was a really talented actress and she was so clever. She actually invented the gizmo that makes wi-fi work – did you know that? Isn’t that amazing? When this is all over, I would love to be remembered for something more than having a great body and being able to read out lines that someone else has written for me.’

‘How do you know all this?’ I asked, without fully thinking through the implications of my question.

‘What?’ Olivia blazed back. Her moods, I was discovering, could change like traffic lights at a busy junction. ‘You think I can’t appreciate great movies because they’re in black and white? I was born poor English, not stupid! But I’m one of the download generation. When I was a kid, my dad got hold of a knocked-off laptop and I used to carry it around with me wherever I went, like it was my favourite doll. Any chance I got to hook up to the Internet, I’d see what movies I could find. There wasn’t much point watching Die Hard or Mission Impossible or big-budget wham-bam shit like that because the connections were so bad you couldn’t see what the hell was going on. So I’d watch all the old classics. At least then I could hear what the actors were saying even if I couldn’t see what they were doing. I could probably give you the whole of The Apartment or All About Eve by heart.’

Before she had a chance to deliver on this promise, we were distracted by a commotion and the staggering figure of Jack Reynolds hoving back into view, pursued by one of the doormen who was controlling access to the VIP enclosure.

‘Come on, Olly, we’re going,’ he slurred, grabbing Olivia by the arm and attempting to pull her from her seat.

‘Get your hands off of me, you ape!’ Olivia snapped back, digging her fingers into her co-star’s hand.

‘Hey, hey! Come on, guys,’ said Buddy rising quickly from his seat at the other end of the table and hurrying to get the situation under control. ‘It is kind of late, Olivia. Perhaps you should be going.’

‘I’ll go when I’m ready,’ she replied, staring directly at me for support. ‘And, as it happens, I’m ready now. It’s been lovely talking with you, English. We must do this again some time.’ She rose and air-kissed everyone at the table, her scent lingering in the space she vacated like a jet’s vapour trail, then wafted off into the bright party lights, followed closely by Jack Reynolds. I’d met a few stars in my time but never before been so close for so long to such insouciant, commanding elegance. I felt completely intoxicated by the experience. That and the four or five glasses of champagne I’d already consumed.

My head was starting to spin and I knew I’d overdone it but, what the hell! The drink was free, I was celebrating a successful trip and I’d had to babysit Bennett all week. And I was suddenly feeling very alone in the busiest city on the planet. It was almost one o’clock which made it six back home in London. Natasha would, without knowing it, be enjoying her last few moments of sleep. Soon she would receive our standard early-morning call – assaulted by a hyperactive three–year-old who greeted the dawn of each new day as if it had to be the best one ever. I missed them – even the rude awakenings – and was glad I’d be seeing them again soon. It was time to go back to the hotel.

I should have looked for Bennett to see whether he was ready to leave too. It would have saved a lot of trouble if we’d stuck together – would have saved his life, now I come to think about it. Frankly, though, I reasoned at the time, he was a grown man and could find his own way back to the hotel. I tottered to the exit, slightly unsteady on my feet but not so drunk that I couldn’t hail myself a cab.

Exactly drunk enough, it turned out, to make the biggest mistake of my life.

I’ve always liked to think that, essentially, I’m a nice bloke. In fact, until that night, I would have settled for that on my gravestone: HERE LIES JOSEPH EDWARD GEORGE WEST. ESSENTIALLY A NICE BLOKE. So what happened next – and most of what’s happened since – has to be seen as being out of character.

As I reached the exit, my nostrils picked up a familiar perfume. I looked around and saw Olivia locked in animated conversation with Jack Reynolds. They didn’t notice me and I was almost past them when I heard Olivia yelp and saw that Reynolds had grabbed hold of one of her arms. It wasn’t clear whether he was trying to stop her from hitting him or from getting away. But there was no doubt she was not enjoying the experience and was struggling to free herself from his grasp.

I still don’t know what possessed me. Instead of continuing out into the cold night air, I stopped, stared for a few moments, then heard a voice that sounded like mine but couldn’t possibly have been, say: ‘Hey, Ms Finch, is everything OK?’

They both looked at me in stunned silence. Reynolds, the archetypal tough guy in so many movies, dropped Olivia’s arm and seemed to shrink as I walked towards them, shuffling a couple of paces to his left to position Olivia between us. She, still a little shocked at this turn of events, could only mutter, ‘Er, thank you, um … English, we’re fine. I was just leaving actually,’ then turned and made her way out of the bright lights into the lobby area beyond.

I followed after her, making sure that Reynolds stayed where he was, skulking in a dimly lit corner of the room. Three liveried cloakroom attendants spotted Olivia approaching and raced to find her coat, fighting for the right to be the man to present it to her. I fumbled for my cloakroom ticket, checking every pocket of my jacket and trousers two or three times before I remembered that I didn’t have a ticket because I didn’t have a coat. It had been a warm April evening when I’d left the hotel with Bennett. Now, looking through the glass doors into the darkness outside, I could see it was raining hard. I contemplated a long, wet wait for a taxi along with every other hapless maggot drawn into the Big Apple.

Olivia pointedly ignored me as she slipped on her designer raincoat and peered out into the rain. She stepped towards the door, then sprang back as if she’d received an electric shock. ‘Oh crap!’ she said, ‘there’s a whole load of paps out there. I hate being snapped when it’s late and raining and I look such a goddamn mess – they’ll have me on my way to rehab by breakfast time. Don’t these guys have homes to go to?’ There was no malice in her voice, only the sad resignation that the huddled masses outside had their job to do photographing her, just as it was part of her job description to be photographed by them. ‘Hey you,’ she called to the doorman, who was standing smartly to attention by the exit. ‘Can you see if my car’s out there?’

The doorman scuttled out only to reappear thirty seconds later, rain dripping off his hat and down his shoulders from even that brief encounter with the elements. ‘Your car is right at the end of the path, Ms Finch, and your driver is waiting to open the door for you as soon as you reach him.’

‘How many of them out there, do you reckon?’

‘I’d say around twenty-five to thirty,’ he replied. ‘A few more down the right-hand side than the left. I couldn’t see any long lenses across the street or in any of the apartments.’ He was starting to sound like he might be in Special Forces or the CIA.

‘I really do not want to get papped tonight,’ Olivia mumbled under her breath. ‘Listen,’ she said to the doorman, ‘can you walk with me to the car and cover me from the guys on the right and’ – to me now as if I was also part of the team dedicated to preserving Olivia Finch’s pride and dignity – ‘English, can you take the guys on the left?’

Before I could even think about an answer, she grabbed my arm and pressed herself into my chest. She was slightly taller than me in her heels and had to stoop to bury her head into the crook of my neck. While the doorman strode out ahead, expertly blocking every flash-fuelled photograph as if it were a sniper’s well-aimed bullet, I struggled along, trying not to trip over her feet, blinded by the bright lights and deafened by the shouts of ‘Over here, Olivia!’ ‘Hey, Miss Finch, look this way!’ and, hurtfully, ‘Oi – Blubber Boy, get out the goddamn way!’

The driver opened the door of the black Lexus, then moved alongside me and the doorman to create a human barrier between Olivia and the photographers who had crowded around the car, snapping away feverishly like piranha attacking a fresh carcass. Just as I was wondering how I was going to work my way back out of this scrum, I felt a hand pull me down into the car. I stumbled and half-fell onto the long back seat. Without a word, Olivia buried herself under my tuxedo, sticking her head up into my left armpit. I turned my face away from the window and ducked down out of view, muttering a silent prayer that the deodorant I’d applied all those hours earlier was still working.

I heard the driver’s door open and close, the click of the key in the ignition and the purr of the engine as we pulled away from the kerb. With the smooth motion of the car, it was a few seconds before I realised that part of the gentle vibration I could feel was Olivia giggling under my jacket. When she was sure we were safely away from the mob, she looked up, her hair splattered across her face like a pair of blonde curtains, make-up smeared around her eyes. ‘That was fun,’ she laughed, the Southern girl cutting through her mask of Hollywood sophistication, ‘and you sure do smell nice under there. So, can I drop you back at your hotel?’

‘Really, you don’t have to. Actually, I wouldn’t mind a walk – clear the head a bit, you know.’

‘Nonsense, it’s – what do you Limeys say? – raining cats and dogs. Please, I owe you for helping me out back there.’

‘Well, OK, if you insist. I’m staying at the Hotel du Paris on Fifth.’

‘Travis,’ Olivia called out to the driver, ‘can we drop my friend here at the Hotel du Paris on Fifth? Thank you. His name’s not really Travis,’ she added, turning to me with a huge smile illuminating her face, ‘I just call him that after that psycho in Taxi Driver. Drives him nuts!’

We drove on in silence while Olivia repaired the damage to her face and hair, squinting into a small compact mirror. When she was restored more or less to her former glory, she folded the mirror away and replaced it in a pocket at the back of the seat in front of her. Then she turned and stared at me for what seemed like an eternity. ‘Who exactly are you, English?’ she said. ‘What the hell am I doing letting some guy I hardly know into my car? Please promise me you’re not some kind of a stalker. I’ve already got quite enough of those.’

‘I’m not, I promise,’ I said, watching the raindrops racing across the window as the car sped through the Manhattan streets. ‘And I’m sorry that I stuck my nose in like that back at the party. That really wasn’t like me at all.’

‘You don’t have to apologise, English,’ she said, posting her right arm through the crook of my left, until her hand rested awkwardly on my thigh just below my lap. ‘That jerk was really busting my ass. Buddy likes us to be pally off set – you know, to get the media sniffing around for a story, “are they, aren’t they?” and all that crap. But he wanted to carry on the act right through to home plate, if you know what I mean. The guy is old enough to be my father – did you know that? They keep these poor bastards hanging on, still believing they’re God’s gift to women when some of them can hardly stand up in the morning, let alone get it up. With us women – bang! As soon as your tits start heading south, it’s all over. Then twenty years in the wilderness off Broadway before you can come back playing the Next Big Thing’s mom and try to grab yourself a Best Supporting Actress nod.’

The driver interrupted her to tell us we’d arrived at my hotel. ‘That’s a shame,’ said Olivia, ‘I was enjoying our little chat. I know, why don’t I let you buy me a drink to say thank you for rescuing me earlier? I’d love to buy you one but, you know, they don’t let me carry any money.’

Before I could say ‘no’, Olivia had unclipped her seatbelt and the driver had opened her door and was helping her from the car. I would have one drink with her, I told myself, and then go straight to bed. Alone. I was even looking forward to telling Natasha all about it – ‘Hey, you’ll never guess who I ended up with in the back of a limo after the party.’ I couldn’t wait to see the look on my wife’s face.

The hotel bar was still open and I guided Olivia to a table in the corner. It was almost dark, as if Prohibition had never been repealed in this part of the state and drinking alcohol was still illegal. A few hardy, late-night souls chatted quietly in twos and threes or sat silently alone in the dimness. One over-dressed and under-sober woman looked twice at Olivia to make sure it wasn’t her before concluding, loudly, to her companion that the broad in the corner looked a little like ‘that actress, Whatsername?’ But apart from that, and the surly attention of a waiter who was clearly more interested in ending his shift than serving his customers, we were left alone – the middle-aged, middle-class, middle-income Englishman and the brightest star in the Hollywood firmament. What on earth would we talk about?

We talked about her, mostly. With little prompting, Olivia was happy to tell me all about her life so far. How she had grown up in a small southern town straight out of a Dolly Parton song without two nickels to rub together and a father who was a perfect gentleman when he was sober but was never sober. She had discovered at an early age that she had a talent for acting and, as she became a teenager, for turning boys’ heads. At sixteen she had hitchhiked to Los Angeles and waited on tables while waiting for an acting job. She’d been engaged twice – first to her high school sweetheart and then to the guy who directed her first film (the one she didn’t like to talk about) – but right now she was between engagements.

Olivia enjoyed telling her stories as much as I enjoyed listening to them. She played all the roles in each anecdote, switching between accents and characters with the consummate ease you would expect of such an accomplished actress, turning each one into a mini-screenplay any of which would have made a better film than the one we had sat through earlier in the evening. Before I knew it, I had finished my drink and, despite my earlier resolution, found myself calling the waiter over and asking him to refill our glasses.

‘So, Mr Money Man,’ Olivia said as the waiter returned with our fresh drinks and set them down clumsily on the table in front of us, ‘that is quite enough about me for one night. Now I want to hear all about you. I bet you have some fascinating stories to tell. Tell me, did you always want to be an accountant?’

I looked at her closely, trying to find any signs of mockery in her eyes, but there were none. ‘Good God, no!’ I replied. ‘Who would? A career in accountancy isn’t something boys dream of alongside space travel or driving trains. It’s something you fall into – like a hole.’

Olivia laughed out loud, breaking the silence of the room and causing the other bar-dwellers to turn and look at us. ‘You are so funny, Joe. That’s one of the things I really like about you. You know, I’ve always preferred a funny man to a good-looking one …’

‘Gee, thanks,’ I replied, only slightly pretending to be hurt.

‘Oh God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that … you know. In fact, I think you are a very attractive man, Joe. I’ve always had a bit of a thing for older men. Apart from my dad. I hated that sonofabitch. You have gorgeous eyes, you know – deep and soulful. Has anyone ever told you that?’

I smiled and blushed. No, no one ever had, least of all one of the most beautiful women in the world.

‘So what did you want to do?’ Olivia continued.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘When you were a kid. We’ve established that you didn’t lie awake at night fantasising about a life as a bean counter – so what was your dream?’

‘Do you promise not to laugh if I tell you?’

‘Try me,’ Olivia replied edging a little closer along the bench seat, intrigued to learn my deepest, darkest secret.

‘OK. I wanted to write. To be a novelist – or perhaps a screenwriter. I remember when I was about nine we drove past a bookmaker’s – you know, a betting shop – and I asked my mum if they would make my book when I was older. I thought it was the same thing as a publisher!’

‘Aw, that’s so sweet,’ said Olivia, edging closer still. ‘So what happened?’